1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a touch panel device, an electro-optical device, and an electronic apparatus.
2. Related Art
Generally, touch panels are coordinate inputting devices that input plane coordinates of a portion that is indicated by a finger, a pen, or the like to an electronic apparatus. The touch panels are arranged on a display screen of a display device such as a liquid crystal panel.
As for general detection methods for the touch panels there are various methods such as a resistive film method, an electrostatic capacitance method, and an ultrasonic wave-elastic wave method. Among these, for example, in the above-described resistive film method, conductive films having transparency are formed on opposing faces of two glass substrates that are arranged to face each other with a very small gap interposed therebetween, and the conductive films are brought into contact with each other so as to be in a conductive state for a case where the glass substrate located on the observation side is pressed by a finger, a pen, or the like on the observation side, and whereby an output, such as the corresponding voltage to the resistance value between both the conductive films is acquired. The touch panels of such a type are relatively inexpensive and are mainly used.
A general touch panel 10 of such a type will now be described in detail. As shown in FIG. 9, the touch panel 10 is configured by bonding first and second substrates 11 and 12 that are transparent and formed from glass, resin, or the like, together with a sealing member 15 formed from resin so as to be arranged to face each other with a very small gap interposed therebetween. On the faces of the first substrate 11 and the second substrate 12 that face each other, transparent conductive films 13 and 14 are formed. In addition, the first substrate 11 of the touch panel 10 is bonded to an observation-side substrate 22 of a liquid crystal panel 20, which includes substrates 21 and 22, by using an adhesive material 19.
In addition, a polarizing plate 28A of the liquid crystal panel 20 is attached to the outer face of the second substrate 12. The touch panel 10 is housed inside a frame body 40 that is formed by a case of an electronic apparatus and the like, and an operation face of the touch panel 10 is arranged so as to be exposed from an opening portion 40a of the frame body 40. At this moment, an opening edge portion 40b of the frame body 40 supports the peripheral edge portion of the second substrate 12 of the touch panel 10 from the upper side through a shock absorbing member 41 and the polarizing plate 28A. A support structure same as described above has been disclosed in JP-A-2006-134180.
However, in the support structure of the touch panel shown in FIG. 9, the opening edge portion 40b of the frame body 40 supports the second substrate 12 of the touch panel 10 through the shock absorbing member 41 and the polarizing plate 28A, and the second substrate 12 is formed so as to be able to be elastically deformed by the force generated by the pressing finger f (may be a member such as a pen). Thus, when an electronic apparatus in which the above-described touch panel 10 is mounted; it receives an impact by falling on the floor or the like, as denoted by a dashed-two dotted line shown in FIG. 9, the second substrate 12 is deformed, and the stress is concentrated on a support portion of the second substrate 12 that is supported by the opening edge portion 40b of the frame body 40. Accordingly, there is a problem that a crack forms from near a point P (an inner end portion of the support portion) for a case where the second substrate 12 is formed from brittle material such as glass. In addition, in a case where the second substrate 12 is formed from an elastic material such as a resin material, the second substrate 12 may be damaged, or the entire touch panel 10 may be deformed. In addition, since the opening edge portion 40b of the frame body 40 supports the second substrate 12 of the touch panel 10 through the shock absorbing member 41 and the polarizing plate 28A, the thickness of the touch panel device is increased, and the level difference between the frame body 40 and the polarizing plate 28A is visually distinguished. Accordingly, there is also a problem that the external appearance of the touch panel device is degraded.